Tornadoes: Not Just a Concern During Springtime

November 30, 2008
By Errol Castens
Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal - Tupelo, MS

Tornadoes, like robins, can be one of the harbingers of springtime.

Unlike robins, however, unwelcome twisters can - and do - show up in the South any time of the year.

And, the truth is, some of Mississippi's worst weather often shows up in late autumn.

"We tend to think of spring when we think of tornadoes. While April is the most active tornado month in Mississippi, November is the second most active month," said Mississippi Emergency Management Agency Director Mike Womack.

Gov. Haley Barbour declared November as the state's Tornado Awareness Month, urging all Mississippians to be aware of possible severe weather and to review preparedness measures.

During the first half of the month, representatives from MEMA, the National Weather Service and local emergency management offices visited nearly 50 schools statewide, reaching some 7,000 students with the message that weather awareness is a year-round effort.

The attention is timely. While this month has been unusually calm, in the first 10 months of 2008, Mississippi has encountered 91 twisters - the second largest number in any calendar year on record and nearly four times the annual average already. And from 1950 to 2007, December was an active month as well - the sixth-busiest out of the 12.

Several Northeast Mississippi counties have been pounded by tornadoes this year, resulting in the destruction of dozens of homes and significant damage to many more. There were no deaths and few injuries locally, but the same system that hit Lafayette County in February killed nearly 60 people and injured hundreds more across the South.

PREPAREDNESS IS KEY

Emergency management officials say sensible actions really do save lives in times of severe weather.

"Don't take the attitude that you're powerless against it," MEMA spokesman Jeff Rent said.

One of the most basic preparations is a weather-alert radio. Such a device will sound an alarm any time the National Weather Service issues an emergency notice - especially important because most tornado deaths in Mississippi occur at night.

"They are just as important as a working smoke detector; they really are a life-saving device," Rent said.

If a tornado alert is issued for an area, the next step is to move to the safest spot available. In site-built structures, that means going to the lowest level - a basement if possible or at least an interior room, closet or hallway on the ground floor. For those in vehicles or manufactured homes, it means going somewhere safer.

"If you live in a mobile home or manufactured housing, those are not strong structures - even a weak F-1 tornado can destroy them," Rent said.

One increasingly common option for such folks is going to a nearby community shelter. Many counties and cities have anchored steel-and-concrete shelters designed to protect scores of residents through even an F-5 twister.

The devil in the details is deciding when to go to a shelter.

"If it takes longer than just a couple of minutes, you may not want to get on the road after a warning has been issued," Rent said. "It is definitely an imperfect option, but community shelters do give people who live in manufactured housing some option, at least."

Lafayette County Emergency Management Coordinator Jimmy Allgood said while some people do wait until the last minute to evacuate to a shelter, for others the threat of bad weather becomes a social event of sorts.

"We put a lot of them at the fire stations, and some of our firefighters go open the stations when there are weather watches," he said. "Then people will go to the fire station and play cards or dominoes, watch TV or just visit. If there is a warning, they can go right to the shelter."

HOME SAFE HOME

While community save havens are available, thousands of Mississippians are choosing to buy their own storm shelters. It was the Pontotoc County tornado of 2001 that spurred Mississippi's storm shelter subsidy, which uses federal funds to provide 75 percent of the cost of a safe room or storm shelter, up to $3,500 per residence. While all current funds have been assigned already, MEMA notes that more than 4,000 shelters have been installed under the program, and more than 2,000 more are expected to be built before next fall's completion deadline.

Oxford firefighter Buster Hollowell had one built at his rural Lafayette County home.

"We've been in it three or four times this year. I remember we got it in January, because we had it when the tornado hit in February," he said. "I've had anywhere from two to eight people besides my family inside my shelter before. I don't care if the whole neighborhood is in there."

Richard Copp, owner of Structure 21, an Oxford-based storm shelter dealership, said homeowners have several options such as traditional underground shelters, aboveground shelters accessible to disabled people or even inside-the-home safe rooms that serve other functions when the weather's good.

Some people can't bring themselves to trust an above-ground shelter, but the nearly universal presence of moisture makes underground shelters uncomfortable and invites insects, snakes and rodents to share them, Copp said. The result is that they may not be used at all.

"They can be rather unpleasant, so most people don't go into them unless they're convinced it's critical," he said. "When you do go out, now the debris is flying, and you panic, turn around and go back into your house."

Copp retrofitted his own existing house with a reinforced concrete-and-steel safe room that doubles as a painting studio when the weather is good.

"The one I have in my house is expensive, because it took three of us four days to install it," he admitted. "But we don't have to go there and stay when there's a watch. You generally have a minute to a minute-and-a-half warning if a tornado is coming, and we can walk into it in 15 seconds."

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